Hey everyone, welcome back to The HR Connection. My name is Marie Rolston, I’m an HR Business Partner at Acacia, and I’m here to close out the year and kick off 2026 with some year end reflections. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably proud, tired, and also weirdly unsure of what you even did for half the year. March to October basically disappeared, so when I sat down to think about what I learned this year, I wasn’t that surprised by what came to mind. Over the course of the year, we spent more and more time with a charter school we support and they’re stretched thin. Funding is tight, their regions are hard to staff, everyone covers multiple roles, and something is blowing up every single week, yet somehow things don’t fall apart. Enrollment happens, they stay staffed, programming continues, and it’s not because work is smooth or convenient, it’s because a group of people quietly decide, over and over again, that the mission matters more than the chaos. I also kept thinking about our internal team and the leadership group I’m part of. We spent most of the year in development sessions, we have a full library of frameworks and goals we can say we crushed, but the simplest and most important thing we did and the thing we should be most proud of is that we showed up, because showing up, in its simplest form, is leadership. We showed up when we weren’t feeling it, when things weren’t exciting, and even when it was inconvenient, and that’s where the real growth happened. I used to think leadership was mostly about the big stuff, vision, strategy, getting people inspired, and sure, those things matter, but this year showed me that leadership is also about keeping momentum when you’re mentally fried, doing the small tasks no one ever sees, preventing problems before anyone knows they existed, and following through because it matters, not because it’s fun. You don’t need a title to do that. You don’t need a perfect attitude. You don’t need to feel inspired. Most days of leadership probably feel pretty average, boring, and maybe even a little frustrating, but those are the days that add up and turn into something so much bigger than any one moment. And when I think about how all of this fits into a new year, it doesn’t feel like pressure around some new year, new me version of life. It feels calmer than that, more like I’m just going to keep showing up in a way that fits my actual life. Some days I’ll be focused and sharp, some days I’ll be tired and only able to give a smaller percentage, but both kinds of days move things forward, and if there’s one small thing you take away from this today, remember you don’t have to be impressive to lead, you just have to stick with the things that matter, even when they aren’t flashy, because growth isn’t one big moment, it’s the slow build of all the times we didn’t quit. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I’ll see you in the next one.